Happy Christmas in July!
What’s more exciting than finding a beautifully wrapped gift waiting under the Christmas tree? Today I’m sharing a card inspired by that magical holiday moment! I wanted these cards to look just like festive Christmas presents, complete with sparkling ribbon, gorgeous layered poinsettias, and a playful gift tag that says, “Happy Holidays…No Peeking!” It’s a design that’s elegant, cheerful, and full of holiday charm. These cards are sure to make someone feel like they’re receiving a special gift before they even open the envelope.
To create these cards, you will need the following products from Kat Scrappiness:
-Candy Cane Stripe 6x6 Stencil
-Silver Faux Glitter 6x6 Double Sided Premium Cardstock
-Stitched Scalloped Nesting Tag Craft Dies (currently unavailable but you can use these as well Holiday Shaker Tags Craft Dies)
-Sentiment Shoppe Within the Fold: "Christmas Greetings" 6x6 Stamps Set
-Simple Sentiments Holiday Edition
-Premium Cardstock: White, Sweet Cherry, Berry Bliss, Kiwi Kiss, Honeycomb
-Kat’s Crafty Dabbers or ½” Stencil & Ink Soft Blending Brushes
In addition, you will need the following products:
-Die Cutting machine
-Pixie Spray (optional-but highly advised to apply on the back of the stencil)
-Red Glitter and Red Foil or Mirrored Cardstock (optional)
-Silver Glitter Cardstock, Gold Glitter Cardstock, Silver Foil Cardstock
-Ink pads in colors: red, green, light gray (or gray pigment ink)
-Silver glitter gel pen
-Gold glitter gel pen
-Silver gel pen
-Black ink pad
-Stamp positioner or stamping block
-Ruler
Have all the supplies ready to go? Ok, let’s get started!
The process is similar for all three cards I created with some minor differences that I will explain at the end.
Step #1 – Background
Since the Candy Cane Stripe 6x6 Stencil has lines that range from thin to thick, I sprayed Pixie Spray onto the back before using the stencil. This will prevent the stencil lines from moving while you are inking the panel. It’s totally optional but I advise having some way of keeping the strips from moving.
Cut your white cardstock into an A2 sized panel and line up the stencil on top. You can then adhere to this to your work surface with low tack tape or place it down onto a grip matt as I did.
Ink the stencil with your ink pad and blending tool such as Kat’s Crafty Dabbers or ½” Blending Brush and carefully remove the stencil when finished.
Step #2 – Add Gel Pen lines
Take a ruler and the silver glitter gel pen and add lines in the middle of the stenciled stripes. Do the same step for the white stripes using the silver gel pen. You can use the same for both-I just liked the look of using two different types. For the gray panel, I used a gold glitter gel pen and the silver glitter gel pen.
Step #3 – Thin Strips for the top of the Faux Glitter Ribbons
Using your paper trimmer, cut two thin strips from the silver glitter cardstock.
Step #4 – Faux Glitter Ribbons
Select a sheet of cardstock from the Silver Glitter 6x6 Double Sided Premium Cardstock and die cut that with the widest die from the A2 Stitched Strips Dies. Alternatively, you can use your paper trimmer to cut the ribbon strips but I found this easier as I was making multiple cards and also helps for the next step.
Step #5 – Add the thin strips to the ribbon
If you used the die to cut the ribbon, you will notice that there is a stitched impression down the middle. I applied glue onto that stitched impression and adhered the thin silver strips from Step #3. Having that stitched impression helped ensure that I placed the thin strip down the middle and no adjusting was needed. If you used your paper trimmer to cut wide strips, just adhere the thin glitter strips down the middle.
Step #6 – Poinsettias
Using your die cutting machine, die cut the Small Poinsettia Craft Dies. I die cut them once using red glitter cardstock, once using Sweet Cherry cardstock, and once using red foil or mirrored cardstock. I die cut the leaves using Kiwi Kiss cardstock, and the smallest flower die was die cut using honeycomb cardstock. (Hint: If you are using red cardstock, try ink blending onto the petals to add dimension. You can do the same for the leaves as well.)
Step #7 – Gift Tag
Die cut the gift tag using the smallest Stitched Scalloped Nesting Tag Craft Dies and white cardstock and place that onto your stamp positioner.
The Simple Sentiments Holiday Edition stamp is one large stamp intended to be stamped all at once and then die cut all at once. But since I only need the ‘No Peeking’ stamp, I need to get a little creative. I lined up the ‘No Peeking’ where I wanted it to be stamped onto the tag. I then placed low tack tape onto the other stamps around the ‘No Peeking’. I then inked up the ‘No Peeking’ stamp, removed the low tack tape, and then stamped onto the tag.
I repeated the same process with the Happy Holidays stamp from the Sentiment Shoppe – Within the Fold: Christmas Greetings stamp set. I first lined up where I wanted the Happy to be, added low tack tape around the word ‘Happy’, inked the stamp up, removed the low tack tape, and stamped onto the tag. I then cleaned my stamp, moved the stamp to where I wanted ‘Holidays’ to be, and repeated the process. I do this quite a lot if there is a sentiment stamp I like but I need it to fit my design better.
After I stamped the tag, it felt it was a little too plain so I shined it up a little by using the same silver glitter gel pen to go over the stitched lines around the tag. It added a nice glittery border without any trouble.
Step #8 – Putting it all together
Glue the poinsettia pieces together, alternating the sizes and different cardstocks. I started with the large glitter die cut on the bottom, followed by a smaller Sweet Cherry die cut, then the foil/mirrored die cut, moving down in size each time, alternating the cardstock. You can make your poinsettia with just a few die cuts, or thicker as I used a total of six layers of poinsettia die cuts. Add the small inside flower piece from the honeycomb cardstock. Place something heavy on top of the poinsettia so they can adhere together and let dry for a bit to move onto the next step.
Adhere the faux glitter ribbons onto the card panel, making a cross pattern, towards the left side of the card panel.
Your poinsettia should be ok to use now. Add some liquid adhesive on the back of the poinsettia but only in the middle for now and add that onto the intersection of the faux glitter ribbons.
Take the die cut leaves, add some glue on the back and tuck them behind the poinsettia. Helpful hint: you can separate each of the leaves instead of keeping them together as they were die cut. This will help to place them exactly where you want them.
Add some liquid adhesive behind the tag and tuck that in behind the poinsettia as well.
Now you can go back and add more glue behind the poinsettia petals and leaves as needed.
Finally, add some Silver Pearl embellishments onto the card and one inside the poinsettia.
And that completes the card panel. Here are the three cards individually.
For the green one, I used silver foil or mirrored cardstock for the small thin strips glued onto the faux glitter ribbons, and used Cherry Bliss cardstock for the poinsettia and Kiwi Kiss for the leaves and added some ink blending onto them.
For the gold card, I ink blended gold pigment ink onto white poinsettia die cuts. I then heat embossed gold embossing powder around the edges of the poinsettias. I used: gold glitter cardstock for the thin strips onto the faux glitter ribbons; gold glitter gel pen for the card panel in the white stripes only (I used silver gel pen for the light gray stripes); gold glitter gel pen around the tag; and then added gold pearl embellishments. This a really pretty silver and gold holiday card.
You can have fun playing around with this design. You can change the ‘wrapping paper’ colors, color the poinsettias to make them more realistic, move the placement of the faux glitter ribbons and poinsettias, or using different gel pens, etc. Many fun options!
This card should be easy to mass produce if you have a lot to make or just a few! I stenciled the three panels at one sitting. Then at another time, I added the gel pen lines with the ruler. Then another time, I die cut all the pieces and stamped the tags. Then at another time, I sat in front of the TV to catch up on Kat Scrappiness YouTube videos and glued everything together.
Here are all three cards together. Leave a comment below to let us know which one you like better. It’s so hard for me to choose!
We would love to see what you create using Kat Scrappiness products especially the new releases and cardstock! And don’t forget to enter the monthly card challenges!
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Thank you for stopping by and happy crafting!
Crafty Bo
